Pokemon GO Community Not Happy With This Month's Events

By Anthony Taormina 27 December 2017

This week, Pokemon GO developer Niantic announced events for Korea and Japan that are sure to boost player count and activity in the region. However, the rest of the Pokemon GO community is not pleased with the latest announcement and feels that the developer is phoning it in for the rest of the year.

Players in Korea definitely have a lot to look forward to, though, with the promise of increased spawns and unique Pokemon as part of its Safari Event. Players in the region will also have another chance at the Legendary birds, Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos. These events are slowly rolling out to the Pokemon GO community, but many regions are still waiting for their turn.

While this may be a case of Pokemon GO jealousy, especially considering the Halloween event is about to end, there is reason for players to be disappointed. Later this year, Nintendo will release Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon as a swan song to the 3DS Pokemon games. Moving forward The Pokemon Company and Game Freak plan to focus their efforts on the Nintendo Switch as the primary platform for Pokemon games, with an RPG already in the works.

Given the circumstances, many assumed that Niantic might have something special planned for the release of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Instead, the developer is focusing its efforts on Korea and Japan where, admittedly, the player base is more active and receptive to microtransactions.

Of course, even though there are not any events on the schedule for North America or Europe currently that doesn’t mean Niantic has none planned. The developer is not one to announce its events ahead of time; look at what they did with the Halloween event. One day Pokemon GO players were concerned about the two-item glitch at Pokestops and the next a Halloween event was live and Gen 3 Pokemon were added to the game.

That’s all to say Pokemon GO players shouldn’t be too concerned just yet. Yes, Korea and Japan are getting the attention now, but Niantic may still have some events planned before the year is up. Still, remaining vocal within the Pokemon GO community is an important tool, so if Niantic didn’t have anything planned they may just add something to keep the players happy.